Chapter Three: Travelling CompanionsArianne should have anticipated this.
The queen of Carleon cursed herself for a fool at not foreseeing Melia's reaction when she delivered the news that Ninuie might have perished at Tor Iolan. Men could be notoriously stubborn when their mind was set, and Melia appeared to be no exception to the rule.
Why should she? The woman had spent years searching for her mother, years! Of course she would persist in the hope her mother still lived. After all, the alternative was to face the possibility that the years of searching were for nothing. Arianne could not begin to imagine what it must feel like to face the disintegration of one's purpose in life because of a queen's good intentions. Everything Melia had become since arriving in the Western Sphere was d
